The Guardian says Hollywood’s silence regarding Alec Baldwin’s latest homophobic rant isn’t just deafening. It’s a sign of an industry that pays lip service to equal rights but doesn’t stand up against bullies like Baldwin.
Columnist Patrick Strudwick blasted the entertainment industry for failing to act after Baldwin tore into a British journalist using a series of homophobic slurs including a “toxic queen.”
This week we might be witnessing the Defense of Marriage Act being lowered into the ground, but Baldwin’s rant jumps out as a cold reminder that hatred towards gay people still whistles all around, as alive as ever. And that, clearly, Hollywood helps keep it there.
It keeps it there by refusing to back films such as Behind the Candelabra, idiotically thinking that gay doesn’t pay. It keeps it there by forever casting straight actors to play gay for fear of some kind of homosexual overdose. It keeps it there by perpetuating a culture of shame and silence, a thousand whispers in the ears of LGBT actors: “Keep quiet or your career will meet an early curtain call”.
Its films have for a hundred years ignored us, parodied us and at best portrayed us as doomed and pitiful wretches. Finally, as we see today, Hollywood holds such hatred up using the oldest form of moral negligence: the refusal to attack it.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media is doing its part to protect Baldwin. Not only did CNN and The Today Show strip the ugly comments from Baldwin’s recent tirade, ABC News felt compelled to use the term “alleged” in describing Baldwin’s rant while the Associated Press says said rant “could” be considered homophobic.